Rose
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« on: March 23, 2010, 08:56:03 PM » |
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OBS RECAP AND REVIEWS: LOST S6 EPISODE 9 ‘AB AETERNO’
Brought to you by OBS Staff Member Rose
Ab Aeterno is Latin for ‘since the beginning of time’. It seems we’ve been waiting that long to find out Richard Alpert’s story. And ipso facto, ab aeterno is very apros pos. With that being said…here is tonight’s recap and review.
Jacob visits a gauze faced Ilena in the hospital, to ask for her help in protecting the six remaining candidates.
Hurley, Sun, Jack, Ben, Frank Lupidis and Ilena are sitting round a campfire on the beach. Ilena is in the process of explaining how she came to be involved with Jacob and his plan for the candidates to replace him.
Flashback to Jacob and Ilena, going over his plans, when Jacob says, “asks Ricardis, he’ll know what to” after she gathers the candidates from the temple. Flash forward again, to the Losties asking who is Ricardis. Ilena nods towards Richard and says, “he is”. Ilena then asks Richard what do they do next.
Richard laughs and has no clue. He tells everyone everything Jacob has said is a lie. Jack questions this statement and Richard intends to divulge a secret. He tells everyone that they’re dead and everything (as he points around the island) is not what they think it is. They are not on an island and never where. They’re in hell.
Richard wants to start listening to someone else for a change (as opposed to Jacob), picks up a torch and takes off.
It becomes apparent throughout the group that Richard intentions are to go in search for Locke. Jack sees Hurley a few feet from the campfire, talking in Spanish, to no one. Jack comes over thinking he’s talking to Jacob. Hurley says it’s not, apologizes and tells him it has nothing to do with him.
Ben tells Ilena it's true that Richard doesn’t know anything, for he knows him very well. The group discusses Richard’s lack of aging.
Richard is on horseback riding through a forest and comes to a cabin. He enters and tells his wife, Isabella, that is it he who has returned. They speak in Spanish. Isabella is sick. He leaves to get a doctor. She talks off her cross and hands it to him, to give to the doctor.
At the doctor’s residence Alpert asks for help for his wife and tells him he lives near El Soccoro. The doctor does not wish to travel all that way and plans to give Alpert medicine instead. Alpert hands him all the money he has and the cross his wife gave him. The amount of money is not enough, and the doctor proclaims the cross is worthless and tosses it. Alpert begs him and as the doctor pushes Alpert away, a small innocent struggle ensues and the doctor falls and knocks his head on the table, dropping to the floor unconscious. Alpert takes the medicine and flees.
Upon his return, Alpert finds his wife has already died. Men burst through his cabin door and Alpert is taken to prison.
A priest visits him and gives him food and asks to see his bible. He opens it up and notices it is in English. (See review for the passage).
Richard explains he and his wife were going to travel to the New World to start a family. He then makes confession. Alpert we find out has killed the doctor. The priest cannot repent him for murder and he is being hung the next day. The priest tells the devil waits for him in hell.
Alpert is being led to his execution, blindfolded, when he is stopped by a man name Mr. Whitfield, who questions his ability to speak English. Alpert’s blindfold is removed. Whitefield him it’s his lucky day, pays the priest and proclaims that Alpert is now the property of Captain Magnus Hanso.
Alpert is aboard the Black Rock ship as a work prisoner. The course is the New World. There is a great storm occurring and Alpert asks a fellow prisoner if he can see anything (outside). The fellow prisoner sees an island, and the statue of Tawaret. He tells Alpert the island is guarded by the devil. The Black Rock crashes into the statue.
Everyone awakes after the crash. The prisoners heard commotion on deck and yell out that they are alive. Mr. Whitfield comes below, and runs a sword through a prisoner’s stomach. He systematically goes around the room and continues the same action. He says there are only five officers left and no fresh water or food, so he is basically killing everyone off.
Whitfield is just about to kill Alpert, when the sound of the smoke monster is heard. Rumbling occurs on deck, as the smoke monster kills everyone there, and picks off Mr. Whitefield as well, except for Richard.
Richard has no luck in breaking free of his chains. He sees a boar feeding off one of the dead prisoners. It charges him but he fights back. Delirious he hears a woman talking to him. It is his wife. She tells him they are both dead. She wants to free him before the devil returns. But it’s too late. The smoke monster returns and as she flees up the stairs, Alpert hears her scream.
Alpert is woken up and is given water. It is the Man in Black. He calls himself a friend and tells Alpert that he is in hell.
Alpert tells him the smoke took his wife. The man says then he probably has her. Alpert asks who, and he says you know. The man tells Alpert he too wants to be free. The man agrees to let him free, if Alpert agrees to help him and do anything he asks.
The man in black they will escape, but the only way to do that is to kill the devil.
After a meal, the man in black tells Alpert to walk due West to the statue to find the devil. He takes out a sword and instructs him to kill it with it, and to not let it speak for else it would be too late. Alpert questions how he can kill black smoke. The man in black says he’s not, I am the black smoke.
The man in black uses his wife as a pawn to get him to do his bidding.
Alpert walks up to the broken statue and gets blindsided and knocked to the ground and punched. Jacob asked who is he and who gave him the sword. Alpert asks for his wife, but Jacob has no idea what he is talking about.
Jacob realizes what is happening and tells Alpert that was not his wife and he is not in or nor dead. To prove it to him he holds him underwater.
Jacob tells Alpert he brought the Black Rock ship to the island. Jacob explains via the bottle of wine he has. The wine is ‘hell’ (all the bad things) the cork, is the island that keeps it from spreading. It keeps the darkness where it belongs.
The man in black believes everyone is corruptible because it is in his or her nature to sin. Jacob brings people to the island to prove him wrong. When people come to the island, their past doesn’t matter.
Jacob does step in and not force anyone to make the right choices. Alpert says that if he doesn’t, the Man in Black will. Jacob asks if Alpert wants a job and be the one who ‘steps in' for him. Alpert wants his wife back in return, but Jacob cannot do that or absolved of his sins. So Alpert states he doesn’t want to die, he wants to live forever. Jacob can give him that.
Alpert goes back to the Man in Black. Alpert hands him a white stone from Jacob. The Man in Black tells Alpert if he ever changes his mind, his offer still stands. He hands Alpert his cross he found on the ship. Alpert digs a hole, and buries the cross.
Present Alpert is walking though the jungle and comes up to the place where he buried the cross so many years ago. He speaks out loud and says he’s changed his mind. (He is speaking to the Man in Black). Suddenly Hurley appears. Hurley tells Alpert, his wife sent him and she is standing right next to him. They have a conversation via Hurley.
Hurley then drops the bomb…his wife told him to Alpert that has to stop the Man in Black from getting off the island, or else they’re all going to hell.
The Man in Black in yesteryear is sitting and is approached by Jacob. They banter back and forth. Jacob won’t let him leave, so the Man in Black wants him dead. Jacob hands the Man in Black the bottle of wine and and walks away. The Man in Black turns corked carafe upside down and smashes it.
Review:
Finally! A flashback to a character that has never been highlighted before.
Funny thing is…as things were revealed, it was strange; it felt as if I knew these things all along. Did anyone else feel that way?
Another item that came to mind…how did of the Hanso Foundation make it’s way to the island. The same island Hanso’s ancestor Captain Hanso crashed onto. What are your theories on the correlation?
Is Witmore an ancestor of Whitfield? Or am I reaching?
Heaven and hell is obviously a metaphor, but we still don’t know the exacts. Do you have any thoughts or ideas you’d like to share?
Are you happy with what was revealed tonight?
Items of Mention:
Bible passage: St. Luke - Psalm 4 (I think)
24: And he said, Verily I say unto you, “No prophet is accepted in his own country.
25: But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the ‘days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land;
26: But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow.
27: And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian.
28: And all they in the synagogue when they heard these things, were filled with wrath.
Upon further quick research here is an excerpt from Wiki about Naaman:
Naaman was a commander of the armies of Ben-Hadad II in the time of Joram, king of Israel. He is mentioned in 2 Kings 5 of the Tanakh. According to the narrative, he was afflicted with tzaraath. When the Hebrew slave-girl who waited on his wife told her of a prophet in Samaria who could cure her master, he obtained a letter from Benhadad and proceeded with it to Joram. The king of Israel suspected in this some evil design against him, and tore his clothes. When the prophet Elisha heard about this, he sent for Naaman. Naaman was then cured of leprosy by dipping himself seven times in the Jordan River, according to the word of Elisha.
The temple can be the synagogue. The Others uses the Spring to dip people to ‘cure’ them, as they tried with Sayid.
Favorite Funny Quotes:
Ben: “Oh, this should be interesting” said when Jack asked whom Richard meant (he was going to ‘listen to’).
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